Michael McDowell may race for a smaller team in Front Row Motorsports, but it has its advantages and disadvantages.
Following delivering his team a victory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Road Course, McDowell joined Denny Hamlin’s Actions Detrimental podcast to elaborate on his victory, where he touched on how his team operates. Evidently, McDowell has a lot more say behind the scenes than other drivers at bigger teams, which fascinated Hamlin.
“It’s fun, and it’s fun to be a part of it. I have a great spot at Front Row, because I get to be in most of the decision making, which is fun,” explained McDowell. “And you know, I’m not an owner. I’m not a manager. But I have the freedom to do a lot of things, in regards to development, in regards to people and who we put in place and what needs to happen, and I enjoy that aspect of it. It’s been cool to build something, and be a part of building it.”
Sometimes that freedom McDowell possesses at Front Row is more valuable than what his role would be at a bigger team, as the driver was rumored to be in the mix for a job with Stewart-Haas Racing earlier this season. However, McDowell is loyal, and will return to the team for another season in 2024.
Front Row and Michael McDowell have been a formidable team in 2023, but they’ve been building this thing for that last couple of seasons. Headed to the playoffs, it’s going to be fun to see where the No. 34 ends up at the end of the season.
Michael McDowell reflects on ‘Cinderella Story’ win at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
With his impressive win on the Indy Road Course, Michael McDowell has put an exclamation point on his career season. The NASCAR driver has had a long road to full-time Cup Series racing. Even then, there have been struggles to get to the position that he is in right now.
For Michael McDowell and his Front Row Motorsports team, winning is the ultimate goal. Making the playoffs is part of that. With a chance to point their way into the postseason, this win removes all doubt and worry.
This race featured several drivers on the bubble that happened to find speed this weekend. McDowell not only won the race but fought off Chase Elliott, perhaps the best road course racer in the Cup Series, to do it.
Even though many didn’t see it comes, especially not as dominating as McDowell was, the driver doesn’t see it as a “Cinderella Story.”
“Absolutely not,” McDowell said about it being a Cinderella win. “I think we’ve been the fastest road course car since this Next-Gen car over the average of it, and I think statistically it’ll show that. I think if you just look at the average finish and you look at average running position, we’ve been a top 5 car every single road course race since this Next-Gen car has come in.
“Is it a Cinderella story from a lot of different aspects? Maybe. But off of pure performance, like I feel like we’ve been nailing it and having a shot at it. But I also look at it as like, we’re going up against some really big teams with a lot of resources, and to do what we did today is pretty awesome.”